A Royal boost for the heritage of our beautiful city

Feb 4 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

SAILING into the Mersey or simply crossing the river over the last few years has treated observers to the rapidly changing face of Liverpool.

Whereas once the Pier Head’s “Three Graces” were unchallenged in their domination of the waterfront, they are now completely overshadowed (albeit not artistically) by the rash of tall new buildings.

Heralded as concrete evidence of the city’s revival, the trend appears currently unstoppable with the grand-daddy of all, Peel Holdings’ redevelopment of Liverpool and Birkenhead docks as “the Dubai and Shanghai of the Mersey”.

But hang on, who’s that grumpy-looking, tweedy figure on the horizon loudly complaining some sort of architectural carbuncle thingy? Good grief! It’s the Prince of Wales warning about a new outbreak of carbuncles, nearly a quarter of a century after his last much-publicised criticisms of big, boorish buildings.

The Prince claimed at a planning and heritage conference at St James’ Palace, London, that the capital’s proliferation of new tall buildings creates a “positive rash” of new carbuncles, leading to a “pock-marked” London skyline.

Prince Charles’s pronouncements are particularly relevant to us, as he champions the protection of World Heritage Sites. Liverpool’s attitude to winning this supreme Unesco accolade is distinctly ambivalent, although it is official recognition as one of the 851 most special places on earth.

Anyone who appreciates the WHS honour should welcome HRH as an ally. At the conference, Charles suggested London should do more to protect its World Heritage Sites by following the example of Paris, with its La Defence skyscraper and financial district.

The architectural critic Jonathan Glancey (and someone familiar with Liverpool) says: “It’s marvellous that the Prince has something to say about a breed of new buildings that many of us find questionable, and even disturbing, unnecessary, over-egged and more than a little old-fashioned.”

Glancey also wonders why these aggressive “Flash Harry” skyscrapers are always described as “icons”, whereas, in fact, they’re “the 4x4s of the architectural world. Priapic, energy-gobbling, wind and shadow-inducing.”

You only have to look northwards up Liverpool’s Strand to see our own version of this, as the skyscrapers tower over Tower Building and everything else.

Prince Charles’s remedy is to locate tall buildings in east London’s Canary Wharf district rather than “overshadow Wren and Hawksmoor churches” in the City, the capital’s financial district.

The Prince also believes much modern architecture and planning risks repeating the mistakes of the post-war years. This was akin to “bad manners” because: “We have endured for far too long a prevailing lack of courtesy within the public realm. Is it being modern, for instance, to vandalise the few remaining, relatively unspoilt, beautiful areas of the country?”

Some readers might also recall a great telly moment a few months back, when punky-haired arts pundit Muriel Gray grilled developers about new Clydeside apartments. She squawked hysterically when told that they would last “around 50 years”. The developers seemed utterly astonished at her incredulity over this short-termism.

Prince Charles, too, has suggested architects and developers design buildings that last for 100 years, rather than 20. Although I suspect I’m far from being the only person in Liverpool hoping that one of the saving graces of these Merseyside carbuncles is that they will fall down sooner rather than later.

Please don’t get the idea that I’m totally anti-high rise. For years,I dribbled on with a lost cause campaign to get the Crowne Plaza Hotel to put its restaurant on the roof, overlooking the Pier Head. Now Beetham’s new West Tower, Brook Street, has opened its Panoramic Restaurant on the 34th floor. I can’t wait to get up there and view the city while sipping my creme de menthe shandy.

peter.elson